Sooooo.....

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by MouseWife

GD~ I read your post...what do you think? Okay, this may come up with you and Theo at some point {or not}. My niece has her daughter in Christian school. Yet, she took her to the Natural History Museum...isn't that a contradiction? Or is it?

Technically speaking, yes. The version of reality presented at the Natural History Museum is in direct contradiction with the version of reality that the bible presents.

Now, that doesn't stop people from somehow holding both thoughts to be true in their own minds - that science is right AND at least some portion of the version of deity presented in the bible is also true. I personally can't comprehend that. If any part of what, according to the bible, makes god/Jesus a divine being worthy of belief and worship is true, then the whole premise of science, of paleontology, of any human intellectual endeavor would seem to me to be pretty moot. I don't the idea of picking and choosing which aspects of the bible are literally true and which are not. On what basis does one decide?

But people do, go figure.

I love the fish with the feet. That represents both, right?

Most people who have the fish with feet (aka. the Darwin Fish or the Evolve Fish) are not trying to represent both. They're taking the traditionally Christian symbolism of the fish and satirizing it with the feet to represent evolution, and pretty pointedly are saying they DON'T believe in biblical creationism.

[MouseWife]

Ah, I see. I thought it was a melting of both. Thanks, I'll esplain' that to the Hubster as we had thought differently. Hmm. Wonder what he'll think. We like to think both are possible.

The museums. I guess that, for me, will have to be a place that I go and enjoy. Can't judge others who are there but say it is not real.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by JWBear

We just had a fire drill. Why couldn't they have waited until next week, when I'll be on vacation? Yay.

We've had TWO fire drills in the last six months. In both instances, I was walking out the door JUST as the drill started and was able to miss the mundanities of them.

[alphabassettgrrl]

I can't articulate it, but I don't see a contradiction between belief and science/human achievement. Then again, I see the bible as a great myth, as opposed to literally true. I can say god created the universe in six days, but that can be six days defined much differently than we see a "day".

Science helps us to understand our world- regardless of god. Even if god created us, germ theory is still a good thing to study and understand. Watching the cosmos is an amazing thing, regardless of how it came to be.

I can see how an absolute literal interpretation of the bible would conflict with science- it says god created the world in six days, and a literalist would say that's six days as we understand days.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by alphabassettgrrl

I can't articulate it, but I don't see a contradiction between belief and science/human achievement. Then again, I see the bible as a great myth, as opposed to literally true. I can say god created the universe in six days, but that can be six days defined much differently than we see a "day".

...

I can see how an absolute literal interpretation of the bible would conflict with science- it says god created the world in six days, and a literalist would say that's six days as we understand days.

And my question is, on what basis do you decide which parts are literally true and which parts are not? How much of it has to be proven to contradict reality before all of it becomes suspect? If the entire thing is presented as literally true, but some of it clearly cannot be, how can you both accept the rest of it as true and consider the reality that contradicts it to be true? How much of it can you strip out without it becoming completely meaningless and unnecessary? If you've gotten to the point where your reality remains the same "regardless of god", then why continue to bother with the concept of god?

[Kevy Baby]

I don't know why it took me this long, but I just figured out what your avatar is GD.

[BarTopDancer]

If earth was created by "the big bang" then where did people come from? If we did evolve from primates where did they originally come from? Where did dinosaurs and sharks come from?

[alphabassettgrrl]

That's why I can't see how the literalists can do it.

Personally, I don't see any of it as "true". Inspired, maybe, instructive, sure. But true? No.

[Betty]

I think the Bible is a collection of stories and some history mixed together, passed down verbally, written and translated repeatedly and updated over time as what was considered acceptable changed.

I believe that the bible was also used to control people and used as an excuse to do bad things to people because that's what God would want, etc. (killing adulturers, fortune tellers, etc)

I believe there was a person named Jesus who actually lived. I do not believe that he was the son of God.

[Morrigoon]

re: the wind analogy...

I see the mountains, and the fish, and learn about the wonders of scientific discoveries, and in all of it, I see evidence of God. I do not believe the whole universe just popped into being by accident.

If so, from where? Then again, that's a cyclical line of thinking I can get stuck in because if the universe exists because God wanted it to, where did he come from? Infinity boggles my mind.

The wonders of science, things so complex as evolution or the atomic makeup of everything... it's all so amazing to me, and I think, "Only God could come up with stuff this cool."

So yes, just like GD looks at the leaves in the trees and sees evidence of the existence of wind, I open my eyes and look at *anything* and see evidence of the existence of something we call God.

And THAT's how you can believe in God and science at the same time. Science is our poor alligator brain understanding of how things are, but there's a lot more to it that science has not discovered yet, and some things we may never will (like why socks disappear in the wash, LOL), but in all of it, I can credit God with coming up with it in the first place.